The electronic edition is a part of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American
South.

Languages used in the text:
English

Revision history:

2005-05-05, Risa Mulligan finished TEI/XML encoding

Part of a series:
This transcribed document is part of a digital collection, titled True and Candid
Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students in North
Carolina
written by
Lindemann, Erika

Source(s):

Title of collection: Lewis Family Papers (#427), Southern
Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Title of document: Letter from Exum Whitaker to William F.
Lewis, April 1, 1843

Author: Exum Lewis Whitaker

Description: 4 pages, 4 page images

Note:
Call number 427 (Southern Historical
Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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Document Summary

Whitaker tells his uncle, a former student, that students now
recite on Saturdays, which affects the schedule of duties in the Dialectic and
Philanthropic Societies. He also reports on mutual friends, a mesmerist's
visit, and a revival of religion in Chapel Hill, NC.

Come now lay aside your pipe or your
Blackstone2
for a few minutes, and listen to what I have to tell you, not that I have very
important news to communicate, but supposing that almost anything coming from
this place especially from No. 32
S. B. [South
Building] will be interesting to you. Well in the first place I am
comfortably seated by a small fire, the wind is whistling without, and the
fellows are passing up and down the stairs into the Halls taking out books.

I suppose you have heard that owing to a resolution of the
trustees we have to recite on saturday mornings.3 I
dont know but I do wrong in making such a supposition knowing that you live in
a secluded corner of the world where news seldom comes; and if the name Hermit
ever was applicable to you it certainly is now.

In consequence of this regulation, the two societies meet on
saturday morning at nine oclock, and our society has abolished declamation from
its list of duties, the debate has become languid, in a word the society has
fallen considerably below its former high stand. The present Fresh class is
about the "reddest" perhaps imaginable consists of little shirt tail
fellows about "knee high to a grasshopper", who think they cant be
men unless they curse big, play cards, indulge freely

Page 2

at the bowl, and be found frequent visitors at the "[track]"4
However there are some fine clever fellows amongst them.
Jo.
Nicholson has come to cllege—is a "malist" I believe you
are very well acquainted with him. Notwithstanding the trustees have taken
measure to put down these drinking clubs. (and it is alleged as one reason that
the
Die
club sent tickets to some of the ladies requesting them to become
members.) yet they are kept up and flourish if such things can be said to
flourish, and
De
Witt Stone has thought proper to join
P...M...N...U.. I don't think it will be able to get
"Rex" or
McClees.5Dr.
Mitchell has two nieces with him now
Sarah &
Ann
Mitchell the latter came last wednesday night with
Hargraves. I have not had the pleasure of seeing her yet.
I am informed she is little taller than
Miss
Jane and not very ugly.
Miss
Jane has just recovered from a severe spell of the Billious pleurisy
Mrs6
Mitchell has another son,7 has
not recovered her health yet.
Hargraves has married
Miss Barbee who you know lived a few miles out in the
country. Miss
Julia
Scott has been on the
Hill a
good part of the session, &
Lancaster"bucked up" to her like a clever
fellow, for all that report says she gave him a pretty severe kick telling him
that she never did and never could love him no way he could fix it, he hangs on
yet I see.
Millerism,
Mesmerism, and the comet are the principal topics of
conversation here as I believe they are elsewhere.8 A
Mesmerite9
came through the other day and performed

Page 3

some
wonderful experiments on his boy
Frederick, as he called him, but he would not attempt to
mesmerise anyone else10
even after promising to do so.
Old
Mike [Elisha Mitchell] does not begin to believe in it he says it is the
greatest humbug that was ever packed off on the American people. He has been
very much excited on the subject of late—made several speeches to his
class against it examined every work he can find on it, and he is accused of
writing a piece against it which came out in the last register under the
signature of "N."11
There is a revival of religion on the
Hillmostly mostly amongst the villagers,
young and old. Little and big seem to be very much concerned on
the subject the subject of the
salvation of their souls
Miss Mary
&
Rebecca
Owen have professed religion,
Calvin
Graves also,
Jas.
Downy is very much concerned on the subject & one or two more of the
students Prayer meetings have been held every night for the ten or twelve days,
there is scarcely any shouting amongst the folks, but considerable crying and a
great deal of real earnestness.

Boyd send his respects to you, seemed to be much rejoiced
that he is going to leave before commencement
Jas.
Scott sends his best respects & says he would be glad to receive a
letter from you.
Willis Sanders sends his respects, & wishes you to
write to him & tell all about "his gal.
Dick says if you dont answer his letter the next time he
catches you he will give you nine & thirty12
he has been looking out anxiously for a letter from you all

Page 4

the session. I have not been able to sell your
furniture yet, & Im afraid the "times are so hard" wont be able.
Brown came up here this session and presented an account
of a pair of pumps against you $2 1/2. I am inclined to believe they
have been paid for, what say you. I shall expect a full sheet from you soon,
give my love to
grandma &
aunt Emma, my respects to
Mr Speight. Remember me too to uncle
Exum I had like to have forgotten he had returned. how
does he come on courting? Dont let every body get hold of my letter as they did
Dick's, and be
assured I ever remain your affe &c

I hope you will cheer us with your company at commencement
[William]
Mullins writes13
he will be here.

Endnotes:

1. Lewis Family Papers, SHC. The letter is addressed "MrWilliam F. Lewis/
Tarboro'/N.C."The amount of postage, "12 1/2"
cents, is written in the upper right corner. A circular stamped postmark
appears in the upper left corner, but the date is too faint to make out. Below
the fold forming the bottom edge of the envelope, someone has written
"From/
Exum
L. Whitaker/
Chapel
Hill/
Ap'l. 1843."

3. Though Saturday classes had been abolished in 1838, by December
1842, the trustees had once again required students to attend at least one
recitation daily, including Saturdays and Sundays. In Spring 1843 students
petitioned for the abolition of Saturday recitations on the grounds that the
debating societies conducted their exercises in declamation and composition on
Saturday mornings, debates being held on Friday evenings. The trustees
authorized the faculty to grant the request (Battle 1:476-77).

7. Henry Eliot Mitchell, who died four months later (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography
4:282).

8.
The
Raleigh Register and North Carolina Gazette, on
March 21, 1843, reported on the "effects of
Millerism," the belief of followers of
William
Miller (1782-1849), founder of a religious sect of
Second
Adventists, that the second coming of
Christ
would occur in 1843. The
Register's report summarized newspaper accounts of
people becoming insane, a clergyman resigning his congregation, and a man,
impatient after waiting for the
Second
Coming, climbing a tree in a "long white ascension robe,"
falling, and breaking his neck (3). Between
February 10 and
March 31, 1843, the
Register also printed at least ten articles on
Mesmerism
or
Animal
Magnetism, a system of treating diseases through hypnosis that had been
developed by the German physician,
Friedrich Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). Articles on the comet
appeared in the
Register on March 17, March 24, and March 28, 1843.
The
Register's report of March 17, 1843, describes the
phenomenon as follows: "The Phenomenon is stated in the
National Intelligencer not to be a Comet, but is called the
Zodiacal Light, appearing in the morning before sunrise, and in the evening
after twilight, and generally seen about the period of the equinoxes. But in
some of the Northern papers, it is described as a comet of great brilliancy,
visible, near the Eastern limb of the sun, even in the day" (3).

9. Probably a
Mr. Bandel, who advertised a lecture on
Mesmerism
at the
Raleigh
City Hall on Tuesday evening, March 14, 1843, at 7:30. Admission was 50
cents; "a Lady and Gentleman, 75 cents" (Raleigh Register and North Carolina Gazette, March
14, 1843, 3). The
Hillsborough Recorder reported on March 30, 1843,
that"Our citizens had an opportunity of witnessing some experiments in
Mesmerism
on Tuesday of last week, by a
Mr. Bandel, who seems to have set all
Raleigh on
tip-toe in the investigation of this wonderful discovery"(3).

11. An article titled "Mesmerism" and authored by "N." appeared in
the
Raleigh Register and North Carolina Gazette on March
31, 1843. The editor's note at the end of the article states, "The above
Communication, in ridicule of
Mesmerism, is from a source entitled to high respect. The
author is a scientific gentleman, whose opinions on all subjects are entitled
to great weight. But we cannot give up the evidence of our own senses, and must
maintain that, of
Mesmerism, it is emphatically true, that 'seeing is
believing'" (2).

12. Thirty-nine lashes on the bare back was perhaps the most
severe penalty, short of a death sentence, that could be given to a slave.
Slaves could be punished in this way for lying, larceny, or murder (Lefler and Wager 99-101).